Editor’s Note
When called upon to comment on a group of films, whether as a critic summarizing a festival or writing a year-end round up, or a programmer being grilled before a selection is presented to the public, inevitably the T word will enter the conversation—by that, I mean “trend.” To wit, “What trends have you seen in the program this year? What is the greatest trend in contemporary cinema? Do you see any trends coming out of Eastern Europe? Yadda yadda yadda.” I think I speak for most people in saying that nobody thinks trends are interesting save fashion journalists, but with the recent batch of premieres at Sundance, Rotterdam, and Berlin, one “trend” has indeed monopolized the conversation, for obvious reasons: pandemic cinema. Is pandemic cinema a trend? Sure, because it…